Gardening!

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry for the long absence everyone. Please enjoy these quick shots of what my indoor plant starting looked like about a month ago.

 

And below, what plants look like now!

Lots of tomatoes, a gaillardia, some zinnias….

 

 

 

Peppers

 

Cucumbers!

Lavender and rosemary grown from cuttings I took last year. They are growing well. I think I will have to pot up any of these guys I want to survive the winter and bring them inside or else they will rot and/or freeze to death.

 

I am frantically trying to do all of the spring work around here and feeling rather behind as we are having summer temperatures, but I will try to keep you updated. Expect not to see much fibery activity until temperatures drop below the 80′s!

Spin, Spin, Spin, Round and Round.

You must all pardon my long breaks between postings I’m afraid. Life has been busy.

 

In apology please enjoy some of my recent spinning.

A silk/merino blend from Fiber optic

 

More of the suffolk/dorper blended fiber that I prepped myself. I have enough to make a whole sweater!

A delightful Huckleberry Knits braid became this.

A close up.

This electric green kermit the frog yarn was spun from fiber purchased at the Black Sheep Gathering last year.

A skein of art yarn spun from an art batt by Boho Knitter Chic. It was crazy fun to spin (Sparkles!) and Molly has decided that rather than knitting with it, I should just wear it wrapped around my neck in a skein.

 

More updates to come. Next: Gardening!

 

Peek into my sketchbook

Old sketches, watching people practice singing Christmas songs for a play.

Wipe Canvases

This is an imaginary portrait (of a non-existent person!) that was part of the show at the coffee house. It started out as a “wipe canvas.” Wipe canvas is a term that I have just made up. See whenever I am painting with acrylics I feel really bad about having left over paint because once it dries, it can’t be resuscitated. I can never predict how much paint I need and if I try to use up the leftover paint on my painting it frequently ruins it…so instead I use the leftover paint to experiment with color and brush stokes on another canvas. Because I am working without a plan in mind, it is very freeing and I love to let the paint suggest what I should paint. This turned into a portrait. I did end up using newer paints to finish up this piece so it isn’t purely leftover paint.

This is another of my wipe canvases, far more abstract and kooky than my previous one. The color scheme was set by the paint that I had left over. I originally started the artwork with it in the horizontal position, but I set it aside at one point to continue the work on another piece of art and when I looked down I realized that it looked far better in a vertical orientation! Towards the end I had a nagging feeling that it still needed something and finally I decided that the final touch was for my signature to be yellow!  I enjoy working with acrylics because, unlike watercolor, layering and re-painting is easier and creates exciting effects rather than mud.

This is a wipe canvas in progress. I have no idea where it is going to go! Keep an eye here to see updates!

Roadtrip Sketches

As you know, Luke and I took a road trip this summer to California for a cousin’s wedding. Along the way I decided to try sketching from the passenger seat of the car. My thought process was that if I was going to be staring at long expanses of freeways and fields then it wouldn’t be too hard to draw them before we passed them by.

Wrong.

It was actually highly challenging to catch the angles and particulars of what I was seeing before we passed it. I discovered I had to simplify immensely along with modifying the sketch by adding on elements of things I saw after we passed the first scene.

The road directly in front of us was the easiest to capture, along with the backs of cars! Trying to catch the way roads curved or disappeared into the horizon was a great exercise in perspective.

The scribbly things on the far left are olive trees. We passed through a town in CA that was surrounded by olive tree orchards. It made me miss Italy immensely.

The sketch on the left is a composite several landscapes we passed in California.

The rolling hills with what I think were oak trees are such a distinctive sight of the mid-CA coastal region. I was completely fascinated. I would have loved to see the area before the huge metropolises of San Francisco and L.A. took over.

All in all, I enjoyed trying to sketch with the car and I think with some practice I could get things down with a bit more detail.

Fibery fun

I’m making good progress on my sweater by Amy Herzog!

Just one more big skein of white yarn to go. I can do it!

Art Show Part 2: Silly Sheep

Swirly sheep!

Polka dot sheep!

Sheep pun!

Art Show Part 1

The entire month of February I displayed art at Chair Coffee, a local hang out in town. I was in a bit of a rush getting everything together for the show so I didn’t stop to photograph and post about the art I made before I hung the art at the shop. Instead I photographed the remaining art (I sold two pieces!) at the end of the month when I picked up the art.

The first two pieces I will show here are inspired by later summer here in the Inland Northwest.

I find the stubble of the hay and wheat fields completely fascinating.

A most common view in the summertime are hawks circling,  riding on thermals in a searing blue sky. I love their powerful shoulders and fierce grace. Below are some thumbnails that I used to think out these paintings.

Lovely Crafty Friends

I have them.

Jessica, Molly, and I all went to high school together. We all learned to knit around the same time and when we were seniors we were co-president’s of our school knitting group-The Knitting Knerds (Awesome name, Awesome club). Jessica lives on the other side of the mountain from us and occasionally she comes to visit or sends us surprises.

One of her surprises came in the mail yesterday to Molly’s front stoop. I waited in excited agony until Knit Night when Molly could bring it to share. Jessica had given her enough yarn to make knee high stripy socks. My present was the Swallowtail Shawl by Evelyn Clark which was delightful as I have had that shawl in my favorites on Ravelry for years now. I was so excited! It is the perfect little neck scarf.

The bobble-like shapes you see on the shawl are called nupps. Nupps are made by knitting together a whole bunch of yarn overs into one little bundle. It is an Estonian knitting technique and is something that machines cannot duplicate so whenever you see nupps in knitting that means it is handmade!

Also, recently Molly gave me my Christmas present (Yes, in February. That is how we roll). It is a beautiful woven hounds tooth scarf in two of my favorite colors, in fact, the colors I picked for my wedding.

Isn’t it pretty?

Now I have two beautiful handmade creations to keep my neck warm. Thank you Jessica and Molly!

Hurray for crafty friends!

View from My Window

This is the view that I see every day from my seat at the kitchen table. I love the cheeriness of my neighbor’s yellow house against the darkness of the conifers and  and the greyness of the well aged winter snow. It is common in this area for people to plant trees for privacy scenes or wind breaks so I included their screen although it is not perhaps the most flattering to the house.